


Glory Be to Quadrant Hoppers

by leijonara



Series: bright hearts in dark nights; warm blood in cold hands [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Multi, Older Characters, Quadrant Confusion, original character death, quadrant flipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-12 04:59:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3344477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leijonara/pseuds/leijonara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Nepeta Leijon and you were sure these feelings were simply red once. Now Karkat Vantas is stealing your heart, diamond, spade and club and you've no clue what to do about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> one day soon when i learn how to properly, the trollian chats will be coded properly. for now, it's pretty obvious who is who.

AC: :33< *ac crawls onto karkitty's lap, purring loudly*  
AC: :33< karkitty  
AC: :33< karkitty! >:((  
AC: :33< *the huntress growls her displeasure, and a number of small creatures fl33 her cave in furight*  
AC: :33< karkitty  
AC: :33< uuugh!!! fine, whatefur.  
AC: :33< you know how rude it is to be online and not reply!  
AC: :33< i might have to block you!  
AC: :33< h33 h33, just kitten! but really, get your furry butt online!  
CG: NEPETA, WHAT THE FUCK, YOU SENT ME NINE FUCKING LINES OF TEXT IN LESS THAN A MINUTE. HAS IT MAYBE OCCURRED TO YOU AT ANY POINT THAT SOMETIMES PEOPLE LIKE TO, OH, I DONT KNOW, PISS?  
CG: WHO AM I KIDDING, THE VERY IDEA OF BASIC FUCKING DECENCY IS FOREVER LOST ON YOUR CAVE DWELLING ASS. BASIC DECENCY HAD A SHIPWRECK ON YOUR ASS AND WANDERED IT LIKE A BARREN DESERT, DEVOID OF FOOD, WATER OR MORALLY AMBIGUOUS COCONUTS. BASIC DECENCY AWAITS THE DAY IT STUMBLES INTO A NEST OF DESERT ZOMBIES NURSING A FLESH EATING DISEASE, OR SOME OTHER DELIGHTFUL REPRIEVE FROM THE HARSH WILDERNESS SOME POOR JADE BLOOD HAD THE JOY OF LABELING "NEPETA'S ASS."  
AC: :33< wow, you sure like to talk a lot! how the hell did i furget that  
AC: :33< *ac yawns, showing off her glinting t33th*  
AC: :33< i did have a reason to talk to you, and id appreciate if you listened! its not efurry day i get to go online!  
CG: OKAY, I'LL BITE. WHAT?  
CG: AND CUT THE ROLEPLAYING, YOU KNOW THAT GIVES ME PANROT.  
AC: :33< well...  
AC: :33< my eighth purrthday is coming up!  
AC: :33< and i know you would sink your claws into the idea of a night of pawsome games and movies and food  
AC: :33< and also a chance to yell at people  
AC: :33< so?  
CG: OH, LET ME THINK. HAUL ASS TO YOUR SORRY EXCUSE FOR A HOLE IN THE WALL, LITERALLY, TO JOIN THE ELEVEN FUCKBRAINED ASSWIPES WHO CONSTANTLY PLAGUE MY EXISTENCE IN A SHITFEST OF SWEEP OLD ROMCOMS AND FAYGO CHUGGING, OR STAY HOME AND SPEND A PEACEFUL NIGHT IN MY QUIET HIVE.  
AC: :33< i might make my famouse oinkbeast crackling.  
CG: HOLY FUCK WHEN IS IT.  
AC: :33< let you know when it gets closer! i gotta go, karkitty. wifur is dropping out.  
CG: YEAH, BYE.  
  
arsenicCatnip [AC] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]  
  
Your name is Nepeta Leijon, and you are  _so_ sick of this.


	2. Mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pounce de Leon isn't just an oversized housecat. She's a mother, and an attentive one at that.

Your name is Pounce de Leon and you are worried.

You're old. Very old, really, you've lived a long while before the grubling called Nepeta found her way into your claws. Like your mother, and her mother before her, you waited your entire life to get Nepeta. You spent your adolescent years scoping out a home for yourself and when you came across a network of caves, walls covered in troll writing in faded olive, you slaughtered the things that hid in the shadows and made it into a proper home.  
You suspect Nepeta has seen the writing. She's a wily thing, free and fiercely protective of her rights and self. There's no way she hasn't gone deeper into the cave network. You once worried, but it is natural for a troll to seek knowledge of their ancestor.

You're resting at the moment, curled up in your private cave. You have a huge nest of moss and pelts to sleep on. Nepeta usually gives you the pelts of what she hunts, since she uses the coon more often than not. Since the six sweep mark her dreams have been plagued by horrific things, as it should be for every young troll, and the sopor she sleeps in helps curb that.  
You miss the days when you could simply curl up around her, lull her to sleep with your purr. Now, although she doesn't push you away, like any young huntress she craves her space and privacy, and you will not stop that. It's necessary, this independence, and you'll cultivate it.  
Still, though. Your tail hasn't been brushed through with a bone toothed comb for at least a perigee and it hurts.

You hear her, in the living cave, and rise to your paws. There's a faint scuffing of the ground where she sets her feet and you growl. You taught her to be more alert than to scuff her feet. Perhaps she's very tired. It is, after all, just past sunset. She probably just woke up.

You pad out into the living space and Nepeta startled, turning to you. Her hair is messy and your breath rumbles into a low noise of chiding concern.  
"Kittenmine," you say in your language, "before you hunt, let me at least groom you." She doesn't know your words, really. She's pieced together the meaning of some more particular noises but since you usually make your meaning clear by tone and context, she's never had to learn.  
Nepeta is exceptional at nonverbal clues because of this. She can pick up emotion easily by expression- it helps her as a hunter. To be able to see inside the mind of prey by glancing at them... it is a valuable skill. Unfortunately, since you never actually speak in Alternian to her (your throat cannot make the sounds) she doesn't hear many actual words, and she's not the best at reading words for a hidden meaning. You know that makes it hard for her when all her friends are online, but she can learn. She's smart as a whip, your Nepeta.

In any case, she relents without a single noise of complaint- strange, for one as talkative as her- and you carefully pull off her hat with a snagging claw, then sit her down on one of the many pelt piles littering your hivecave. With your tongue you comb through her hair, washing through thoroughly until it is shiny and clean.  
It takes a while, especially since her hair is thick and the curls have twisted together into wild knots in some places. But your tongue is barbed and works through it well, and it can't have been more than twenty minutes by the time you allow her to stand and tug her cap back on.

She squeaks a chirpy goodbye in her language and grabs her pale blue hunting gloves, her strifekind ones, before darting out the entrance. You watch fondly as she leaps into the towering jungle tree right by the entrance, muscles bunching under her tight pants. She'd favored baggy pyjama pants when younger, but had eventually found that tight fitting clothes are far easier to traverse heavy and thick forest.  
Its not until she's gone that you realise she hadn't said a single pun, the whole conversation. It was short, yes, but "efurrything" is one of her better worn in puns and she's gone and left it out. Your throat tightens with worry.

Nepeta is gone from sight a moment later. She's left nothing but a few trembling branches in her wake and your pride shows in a 2x FANGED GRIN COMBO. Even you aren't that stealthy. Your top mouth stretches into a wide yawn and you step out to the entrance of the cave. It is bright- around midnight- and you relax. Sometimes your girl leaves only an hour or two before dawn, and then you spent the whole time worrying before she comes back, usually breathless and with something clutches in her jaw.  
She's got half a night, though, so you simply turn and go back into the cave.

You decide to travel deeper into the cave, see if you can pick up her scent around the old writings. It gets darker and colder the further in you go, and the ground is more uneven and dirty. Your claws scrape against the rock, flexed out of uneasiness, and you keep all your senses sharp. One must always be alert in the caves. Your ear brushes against a stalactite and flicks away the dusty residue. Ew.  
The air grows cold and dank, and reeks of animal leavings- troll leavings? You know this is a very special place in troll history, the birthplace of a religion. The pilgrims you'd eat, but they bring gifts, and they support a noble cause, and you let them go on their way.  
You hiss at a sudden drop of water splashing onto your paw and shiver. It smells rank and you can't scent Nepeta. Oh well. Perhaps she hasn't come this far.

You can't see anything beyond outlines, different shades of black. The torches on the wall have not been lit for sweeps upon sweeps- not since the first dweller of the cave lived here. You know that oil does remain in the cold torches, but lacking flame breath or opposable thumbs (thumbs of any kind, really) you can't light them yourself. And since the smell of troll is faint to the point of being barely discernible, you know it isn't your kit you're scenting. You can, however, smell old, old, blood, sacred blood. You inhale deeply, closing your eyes to better pinpoint the source of the smell. There, in the corner. Silently and reverently you creep up to the source of the smell. In the corner of this particular cave lies a rumpled pile of fabric, old and stiff and crusted with ancient blood that screams red, red red! Beside it is something pale and jumbled.

  
You feel a nervous snarl build up in your throat. You know what this is, you know who this is. It's obvious, from the shape of the horns on the skull to the scent lingering in the rags that half cover it. It is the skeleton of the Disciple, and the uneasiness of being so close to it drives you to back away, turn and race back to the light.

The fresh air welcomes you and your whiskers flutter with relief. You don't much like it in the dark caves. They're better to explore in the dreaded day, when the sunlight reaches in and you can see much better.  
A cursory check reveals you barely spent any time at all in the depths of the earth and you click your bottom teeth in annoyance. It would've been good to kill some time. You sigh through your nose and slink back to your private den for a good wash. Having just your tail nice and neat won't do!

You settle into your nest, circling twice as is the custom for your species. At once you let out a purr; the furs and moss are soft and comforting. You start your wash on your face, using your lower tongue to rasp over your paw and bringing it up to swipe over your face. You have to use the lower mouth, see, as the top mouth only goes to your windpipe and if any hair got in there you'd choke on it. After a few minutes of repetitive, soothing washing, you decide your face is clean enough and start on your chest.  
Your tongue rasps over the fur and the activity begins to lull you to sleep. Dawn still isn't for hours, but a catnap couldn't hurt, surely! You spit out a bit off fluff. Yes, sleep is an excellent idea. Lowering your head onto your paws, you breath a long and slow sigh and let your eyes sink shut.

There are secrets you keep from Nepeta, and there are secrets she keeps from you, and you can't shake the feeling that they might be about the same thing- and it scares you like nothing else ever could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's easier to write from pounces pov than I thought it might be. this story isn't going to be from her pov all the time (or any of the time, really.)


End file.
